


dying to call you oppa

by arabmorgan



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Oppa Kink, Some Humor, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27488809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: Sometimes getting turned into a zombie is exactly what a relationship needs to get going. Just ask Yuta and Mark.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 18
Kudos: 135





	dying to call you oppa

If anyone had told Mark that the zombie apocalypse would happen during his lifetime, he would probably have said something like, “No way, man!” before laughing nervously. In his defense, however, when the zombie apocalypse finally _did_ strike, it wasn’t in a way anyone who watched too many horror movies could have anticipated.

For one thing, the bacteria that caused zombification – whatever its overly-long scientific name was – wasn’t particularly long-lived. If the newly infected failed to consume any blood or brains in the first three or four days of affliction, the bacteria promptly died and life (and higher brain function) then returned to normal for the victim. Apart from, perhaps, the friends and family members they had accidentally traumatised during their few days as a mindless monster – small things like that.

There were also varying sentimental tales of zombies not attacking their loved ones due to residual emotions, but those were mostly dismissed as baseless rumours. Generally, the only widely-acknowledged way to deal with a zombie was to just starve the bacteria out. A simple and pain-free method for everyone involved.

Not that Mark really gave the whole thing too much thought. Malnutrition and exhaustion was probably a larger problem for an idol than actual sickness, and the entire problem just seemed very far removed for someone who had packed schedules, album recordings and overly-nosy groupmates to worry about.

That was, of course, before he came _this_ close to getting backstabbed rather gruesomely by one Nakamoto Yuta – literally.

He could probably have saved himself by actually shutting the bathroom door behind him in the morning, but when one lived in a house with four other members (and one hapless, perpetually-stressed manager), unimportant things like privacy mostly flew out of the window. Mark was, at this point, quite immune to the experience of Jaehyun shuffling in behind him to pee or shower while he brushed his teeth with half-open eyes.

So when he turned around after washing his face to find Yuta standing directly behind him, he was more shocked at how noiselessly Yuta had snuck up behind him than the older man’s actual presence.

“Oh my god,” he wheezed, one hand flying up to clutch his heart. “You scared me, oppa.”

Yuta stared at him unblinkingly for a moment, his eyes unfocused, and then he moved his right hand, and Mark finally saw the horrific sight of a kitchen knife clutched threateningly in Yuta’s half-raised fist.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he squawked once more, scrambling backwards until he was perched on the toilet bowl, his brain too frazzled to really comprehend _why_ his fellow member would be coming after him with a goddamn knife.

Yuta turned slowly towards him, and for the first time Mark saw the sweat beading on his forehead, his too-long bangs sticking damply to his face. His mouth opened, and a strange, guttural, _hungry_ sound emerged from his throat as he took another halting step towards Mark.

_Oh_ boy.

Mark had no idea what to do. Yuta already had a wicked-looking knife in his grip. Would screaming for help make him more aggressive? What if Yuta attacked the first person who appeared to help? Why oh _why_ hadn’t he paid more attention to the news when they had detailed exactly what to do when one’s friend was turned into a zombie?

Hindsight was such a bitch.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself as he stared wide-eyed at Yuta, who was in turn staring off vaguely somewhere in the vicinity of Mark’s shoulder, his hands limp at his sides. He looked like his brain had stopped functioning somewhere between walking and stabbing, which for all intents and purposes it kind of had.

“What are you two doing?” Jungwoo asked quite suddenly from the doorway, and Mark let out another shriek of surprise. Yuta whirled with horrifying speed, and Jungwoo’s eyes widened, his reflexes clearly superior to Mark’s as he immediately took three quick steps backwards.

“Hyung –” Jungwoo sputtered, his eyes following not Yuta’s jerky movements but the arc of the knife in his hand as it raised slowly higher.

“Oh my god,” Mark said, for what felt like the dozenth time that morning, as he scrambled off the toilet and bulldozed straight into Yuta’s back, sending the Yuta-zombie crashing face-first to the ground in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs. Much to his relief, the knife spun swiftly off somewhere out of sight, safely out of reach.

Jungwoo screamed as he leapt away from Yuta’s grasping hands, and the noise brought a tousle-haired Taeil staggering out of his room. “What is it?” he demanded, just about as frantic as Mark had ever seen him – which was to say he sounded only mildly alarmed. “What’s happening?”

“Yuta hyung’s a _zombie_ ,” Jungwoo wailed. “We’re going to have to lock him up for the rest of the week.”

Taeil blinked, looking very much like he wished he hadn’t set foot out of his room. “He was fine when we went to bed last night,” he said at last, and then, “I think manager-hyung brought Jaehyun out for a schedule, so we’re kind of on our own here.”

Great. There was nothing Mark loved more than being without adult supervision – unless there was a brain-craving zombie in the house with them.

Yuta was thrashing wildly beneath him, his lean body taut with tension as he threw Mark off him with a sudden heave. Twisting around, his hand closed painfully tight on Mark’s shoulder, his lovely white teeth flashing not in his signature sweet smile but a crooked snarl. Out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw Taeil make a desperate move, but he was just a little too far away to help.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Mark heard his own voice come out in a petrified whisper-squeal. “Oppa, don’t,” he squeaked, in a way that Yuta would have laughed hysterically at if he had been in his right mind. He’d always found it hilarious whenever Mark called him that, even though by this time it was more out of habit than anything, like an affectionate nickname of sorts rather than an actual joke.

Yuta suddenly went still above him, his hot, less-than-fragrant morning breath still panting against Mark’s face, but he was more grateful to find himself still in one piece than anything. Slowly, bit by bit, he opened his eyes, feeling his heart pounding fit to burst in his chest, and found Yuta once more staring unblinkingly at him, like his brain had happened to shut off at that convenient moment.

Carefully, hardly daring to move too quickly, Mark pushed Yuta off him and sat up, watching in confusion as Yuta picked himself up unevenly, only to stand stupidly in place once more with his hair sweeping in his eyes.

“Mark, what did you say to him?” Taeil whispered, but even that soft noise was enough to send Yuta lumbering determinedly in Taeil’s direction like a confused drunkard. Taeil’s eyes widened as he began to back swiftly down the corridor, his mouth clamped shut in trepidation.

“Mark, _say_ something!” Jungwoo cried. “You said something to him that made him stop!”

It was like a terrible parody of monkey in the middle. Upon hearing Jungwoo’s voice, Yuta made yet another about-face, his neck seeming to spasm as he reset his sights upon the younger man.

“Um,” Mark said loudly, flustered and panicked as Yuta drew closer and closer, with Jungwoo trembling at his back. “What am I supposed to say? Stop? Yuta hyung, stop?”

The only thing Yuta seemed to understand from that was _Come and eat me_! His pace didn’t slow – not that he seemed capable of moving particularly quickly, but cannibalistic intent was terrifying no matter what speed one moved at.

Suddenly, Taeil said sharply, “Mark, call him ‘oppa’. Do it.”

Mark’s mouth remained half-open for a long second as he stared at Taeil over Yuta’s rapidly-approaching shoulder, and then he said hoarsely, “Oppa, stop.”

And like a clockwork that had wound down, drooling in quite an unsightly manner out of the corner of his mouth, Yuta stopped neatly in his tracks less than three feet from Mark.

* * *

Mark had no idea what to make of the fact that apparently, the only thing that could stop the Yuta-zombie from going feral was hearing Mark call him ‘oppa’.

It was kind of funny, he supposed. Mostly it was just extremely weird.

“How did you know?” he asked, once Yuta was locked safely in his and Taeil’s bedroom, his limited zombie brain going quiet once there was no prey in earshot.

Taeil’s face did a funny sort of twitch that looked almost like a grimace, and then he sighed deeply in a _why me?_ sort of way. “We’re roommates. Roommates talk, that’s all.”

“You talk about Mark calling Yuta hyung ‘oppa’?” Jungwoo piped up, looking immensely amused at the thought. “He must _really_ like it if it’s the only thing that can get through his brain when it’s barely functioning.”

Taeil glared at Jungwoo, who giggled with sly innocence out of nowhere, as if he hadn’t just wilfully and intentionally thrown every single one of Mark’s thoughts into disarray.

“Wait, Yuta hyung likes it when I call him ‘oppa’? Like, _likes_ it?” he repeated blankly, his brows furrowing as he tried to figure out exactly how this piece of knowledge made him feel. The word simply slipped from his lips thoughtlessly these days. Of course, he knew Yuta didn’t _hate_ it – Mark pulled it out like a secret weapon sometimes, when he wanted to wheedle something out of the older man, but he had never really imagined that it held any more significance to Yuta than it did to him.

He was definitely confused. Possibly slightly uncomfortable. Maybe a little shy. But there was also a tiny, tiny part of him that, he thought, might be just a little bit turned on.

Holy shit, what was _wrong_ with him?

“Well, I’m not Yuta,” Taeil said irritably, interrupting Mark’s disturbing train of thought. “I’m not having this conversation with you. Go and talk to _him_ about it once he’s better. I’m going to message manager-hyung about what just happened.”

With a huff that quite clearly conveyed _I’m too old for this shit_ , Taeil stood and made a beeline right for the kitchen without looking back, clearly eager to avoid any more strange questions from his younger members about his roommate’s sexual proclivities.

Mark darted a glance at Jungwoo, as if the answers to his current existential crisis ( _Did he actually like the idea of Yuta liking being called ‘oppa’?_ ) would be painted in bright red on his friend’s face, only to find Jungwoo already looking right back at him with one corner of his lips tilting upwards in devious amusement.

“Hey, you call Yuta hyung ‘oppa’ too!” Mark protested, but Jungwoo only shrugged, as blasé as ever.

“Well, I don’t think that’d stop him from eating my brains right now though,” he said lightly in a sing-song tone, before he too stood up and drifted back in the direction of his own room.

Mark watched Jungwoo go, unease churning in his gut as his brain helpfully decided to replay all the recent moments he had called Yuta ‘oppa’. It wasn’t like Yuta had ever responded in any manner that might be considered out of the ordinary. He’d just laughed, mostly. Sometimes he’d ruffle Mark’s hair affectionately, or attempt a weak protest of whatever Mark was asking for, but it had never felt like… _more_. Had it?

Haechan liked to call Mark oblivious, and it wasn’t really something he could deny, but was _this_ something he was oblivious about?

Mark felt like his brain was about to explode from how hard he was thinking about the whole situation.

Slowly, he made his way to the locked door of Taeil and Yuta’s room, listening to the silence emanating from the other side. He wondered for a moment what Yuta was doing, although it wasn’t hard to guess – just standing lifelessly in the middle of the room, most likely. He looked down at the key sticking out of the doorknob, and felt like he was having a bizarre out-of-body experience when he watched his own hand reach out to turn the key in the lock.

The interior was dark when Mark peeked in, the curtains drawn and the lights switched off in an attempt to soothe the zombie brain. Yuta was standing by his bed where they had left him earlier, looking for all the world as if he hadn’t moved an inch, and probably wouldn’t until the bacteria died in another couple of days, but he turned at the creak of the door opening, a low moaning noise emerging from his throat.

Mark let him cross half the distance in that strange shuffling gait that was so out of place coming from swift, athletic Yuta, before he said quietly, “Oppa, it’s me.”

The effect was instantaneous and undeniable this time. Yuta simply stopped like his batteries had run out, like Mark’s voice was enough to override whatever primitive bloodlust was crippling his reflexes and driving him forward simultaneously.

Somehow, Mark calling Yuta ‘oppa’ was important enough to him that he retained recognition of it even when most of his higher brain functions were suppressed.

The realisation was at once humbling and terrifying, and Mark had no idea what to do with it.

“Come on, oppa,” he said carefully, taking Yuta’s arm and leading him slowly back to his own bed, putting gentle pressure on his shoulder until he was seated. “I guess I’ll just…see you soon or something.” He brushed Yuta’s hair out of his eyes, his touch lingering hesitantly before he finally retreated with careful footfalls.

As he locked the door securely behind him, Mark realised that he could once more feel his own heart beating rapidly in his chest, but not out of fear this time. He was excited – excited to call Yuta ‘oppa’ again once he was in his right mind. Excited to see Yuta’s reaction now that he knew for sure there would be something to look out for.

He couldn’t say for certain about Yuta, but Mark was starting to come to the horrible realisation that _he_ was the one who almost certainly had an ‘oppa’ kink.

Oh, he was so screwed.

* * *

Yuta emerged from his room four days later looking decidedly dishevelled and confused.

“What happened?” he rasped, as Taeyong burst through the front door three minutes later with teary-eyed relief all over his face. Mark only hovered anxiously in the background, fairly certain that confronting Yuta at a time when he was exhausted, dehydrated and starving was the worst possible thing he could do right then.

By the time Yuta stepped out of the kitchen with his growing entourage of worried NCT members, however, it was clear that he had been quite thoroughly filled in on the goings-on when he had been zombified. He hurried past Mark with his head ducked in uncharacteristic shyness, refusing to meet his eyes, and promptly barricaded himself back in his bedroom like Mark himself had turned into a mindless zombie.

Haechan, on the other hand, took one look at Mark’s expression and burst into hysterical laughter. He ended up having to be dragged bodily out of the apartment by an apologetic Johnny (who of course still managed to have the most shit-eating grin possible on his face).

So – everyone knew. Mark wasn’t much given to violent acts, but he was absolutely going to _strangle_ Jungwoo the next time they were alone.

How was he supposed to talk to Yuta if the older man wouldn’t even look him in the eye? He groaned in despair, slapping his forehead into his palm, and it took him a moment to realise that a pair of feet had broken off from the rest of the group and halted in front of him. Slowly, Mark looked up to find Taeil smiling rather unnervingly at him with his brows raised.

“I’m going to pretend that you asked to swap rooms with me tonight, because you desperately want to patch things up with Yuta,” Taeil said, and despite his usual pleasant tone there was a rare steel in his voice that almost left Mark quaking. “Don’t mess things up.”

Mark stared after Taeil for a full two seconds before the words he had uttered finally processed in his mind. Whirling around before he could chicken out, he marched up to Yuta’s door and raised his fist, poised to knock. It was completely ridiculous how dizzy with nerves he felt. He hadn’t even been this terrified opening the door to check on the Yuta-zombie.

How the hell was asking, “Hey, do you like to be called ‘oppa’?” more frightening than the possibility of getting his _brains_ eaten? Mark was definitely going to have to rethink his priorities after this.

Sucking in a deep breath, he rapped on the door twice before peeking into the room, his lips pressed together nervously. Yuta was laying half-reclined on his bed, swiping through his phone as he sucked on a juice box, and he immediately choked dramatically upon seeing Mark’s face.

“Uh – Mark!” he sputtered, wiping hastily at his mouth and bolting upright like a soldier leaping to attention. “Did you need something?” His smile was wide, pretty, and looked just about as uncomfortable as Mark felt.

“Um, honestly, uh,” Mark said intelligently, as he sat gingerly on the very edge of Taeil’s bed as if he might need to make a run for it at any moment. “Well, you know, I guess Jungwoo’s already told you about the whole zombie thing. So – uh, yeah. Exactly how much do you like me calling you ‘oppa’?”

Yuta looked a bit like he had been slapped in the face, which was fair, really. It wasn’t like he’d been given a choice when his weakness had been so unfortunately revealed, and Mark would probably have felt bad if he hadn’t been so fixated on his own problems.

Clearing his throat, Yuta took another sip of his juice. “You know perfectly well how much I like it,” he said tensely, one hand bunching the covers up convulsively between his fingers as he looked away.

“Actually, I don’t,” Mark said quietly, his eyes tracing the flickers of rampant emotion flashing across Yuta’s face in fearful fascination. “You’re a better actor than you think, hyung. I never even thought this was a thing until, you know, you turned into a zombie.”

Yuta’s mouth half-opened soundlessly in distinct horror, but Mark cut in again hastily before the apologies could begin spilling out of Yuta’s mouth. He wiped his clammy palms on his shorts, his voice somewhere on the verge of cracking as he coughed out the very odd conclusion he had so recently reached on his own.

“It’s okay. I like it too,” he blurted out, before the words could get stuck irretrievably in his throat. “I mean, I like that you like it? It’s kind of, you know, hot and stuff. Um. Is that, like, too much?”

Yuta stared at him, his mouth still hanging open as he searched Mark’s face with a strained sort of desperation. “It’s not – I mean, I _do_ like it. I like being called ‘oppa’. But I only like it when it’s you. I mean, not that I don’t _like_ it when the others say it, but –” He closed his eyes briefly as he exhaled, looking very much like he was praying for salvation. “I like it best when it’s you – _because_ it’s you.”

Mark let out a loud giggle-snort – he couldn’t help it. Yuta was flushed red as a tomato, from his face down to his neck, and it was _cute_. It wasn’t often that Mark thought of Yuta as cute. The Yuta he knew was often goofy, but mostly he was reliable, warm and caring.

Very oppa-like, in fact.

“Stop laughing at me,” Yuta grumbled with a deep sigh and a roll of his eyes. The sheer exasperation in his tone only made Mark laugh even harder, his back hitting the bed as he rolled backwards in a sudden fit of hysterics.

“Mark Lee!” Yuta complained, and then all of a sudden a warm weight settled heavily against Mark’s torso, his eyes flying open when Yuta’s hands thumped down onto the mattress on either side of his head. Quite abruptly, his breath caught in his throat as he stared up at Yuta’s glowering face right above him. The older man was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling swiftly as if he had done far more than simply leap off his own bed and onto Taeil’s.

“This feels exactly like what you did back when you were a zombie,” Mark said quietly as he blinked up at Yuta, and then, one corner of his mouth pulling up mischievously, he continued coyly, “ _Oppa_.”

This time, with Yuta pinning him to the bed and their faces less than a foot away from each other, Mark finally saw every nuance of Yuta’s reaction with glorious clarity. The way his eyes widened with the shock of the unexpected, the quick hitching of his breath, and finally his face falling as he seemed to shrink in humiliation. The vulnerability in his eyes made something in Mark’s chest ache, and he reached up to lace his fingers loosely behind Yuta’s neck, weaving through the long strands curling at his nape.

“I’m not making fun of you,” he said quickly. “Well, not in a mean way anyway…oppa.”

“You’re the worst,” Yuta muttered over Mark’s renewed giggles, and his next words sighed out of his mouth as if he hadn’t really meant to say them out loud. “You make me want to kiss you so badly.”

Mark felt like his stomach was about to flip its way unhealthily out of place as he blinked stupidly at Yuta, frozen in place as his imagination chose that very moment to run rampant with him locked helplessly in the backseat. It wasn’t like he was in the habit of imagining what it would be like to kiss his bandmates. It wasn’t like he’d ever thought about kissing _Yuta_. Sure, that didn’t mean he was opposed to it, but –

With a suddenness that stole his breath away, Yuta’s lips came pressing down on his, giving him a very physical preview that Mark immediately decided he quite enjoyed. Yuta kissed a little like he was angry, which somehow wasn’t surprising – or perhaps like someone who had been waiting for this moment for a rather long time. One of his hands settled against Mark’s cheek, his tongue moving with a certain amount of aggression that pulled a full-body shiver and a low whimper out of his equally enthusiastic partner.

Yuta tasted delightfully sweet, the remnants of the juice he had been drinking just minutes ago still flavouring his mouth, and Mark parted his own lips further with a muffled gasp.

“ _Oppa_ …” His voice came out hoarse and breathless, with an automatic whininess to his tone when Yuta pulled away, and he couldn’t help grinning when Yuta let out an audible groan in response. “We should probably get off Taeil hyung’s bed, oppa.” Mark purred the last word with relish, only just resisting the urge to pop the ‘p’ obnoxiously.

He was going for adorable here after all, not annoying.

Yuta’s mouth opened in consternation as he reluctantly pushed himself off Mark. “What Taeil hyung doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he huffed, but he took hold of Mark’s hand and pulled him upright anyway. “And stop calling me that before you drive me mad. You look so – you _sound_ so good.” He shook his head, blinking dazedly as he reached out to set his palm against Mark’s cheek once more.

Mark ducked his head, feeling strangely bashful all of a sudden the longer he looked at Yuta and his lips, slick and glistening pink with spit. He’d done that. Him, Mark Lee, with just one word.

Damn.

“Maybe we could, uh, go on a date or something,” he muttered, taking a moment to peek up at Yuta before returning to staring determinedly at the floor.

“What?” Yuta said, confused at the sudden non sequitur.

Mark raised his head reluctantly, almost wishing the ground would swallow him up right then and there. He’d thought that Yuta not eating his brains as a zombie meant that there might be feelings involved, but what if he had it all wrong? What if Yuta just really, _really_ liked hearing Mark call him ‘oppa’?

“I mean, unless you just want this to be a – uh, a physical thing. Otherwise we could go on a date. It’d be nice, right?” Mark tried for a weak smile and was immensely thankful to see Yuta’s face light up with immediate understanding.

“Right, yes, of course,” Yuta said hurriedly, with a sudden burst of excitement. “Where do you want to go? Oppa will bring you wherever you want.” He smiled, chest puffing out and teeth flashing with genuine happiness, and a slow rush of warmth bloomed in Mark’s chest at the sight.

“I’ll think about it and let you know,” he said nonchalantly, as he took a step closer to Yuta, just enough to see the gleam of light in his dark eyes. “In the meantime…you really want to kiss me again, don’t you, oppa?”

Yuta stared at Mark for a long moment, his smile softening into one of faint amusement. “You know, this was worth turning into a zombie for,” he said at last, as he closed the distance between them once again.

**Author's Note:**

> I never even thought about this pairing until that one voice vlive happened lol - you know which one.


End file.
